where we go from here
by altschmerz
Summary: NYSM 2 spoilers. When Jack is shot during the attempted escape on the motorcycles, the team is faced with the possibility of losing him, and important questions come up about just what these people are to each other, who's responsible for what, and what to do next. Gen, no ships, no character death.
1. Chapter 1

here it is, the major character injury fic i wish to see in the world. warnings for the blood and injury involved with a character getting shot, and almost absolutely inaccurate injury and medical depictions.

gets into some of the feelings i have about observations i made during the movie re: deepening relationships, especially the dynamic with merritt and jack, and the fact that jack seemed to spend a pretty blatant amount of time looking for approval from the others. more on that in the second chapter though.

second half coming very soon. lemme know what you think!

* * *

Adrenaline is a powerful thing. The sounds of motorcycle engines screaming to life, the roar of approaching SUV engines, and, after a few seconds, the explosive bangs of firing guns all blend into a perfect storm of chaos and an overwhelming wall of noise. In the assault of sounds and sudden barrage of sensory input involved in falling off a moving motorcycle, combined with the adrenaline, Jack doesn't even feel it happen, chalking the pain up to his impact with the pavement. It doesn't register until he's sitting in a van glaring at Chase McKinney, when he figures out exactly what's happened. The mounting pain in Jack's side and the dampness spreading under his jacket is enough to figure it out.

As Chase gloats, Jack tries to figure out away to, without throwing a wrench in the whole plan, let the others know 'hey by the way, one of them shot me'.

"Fear," Chase says, pointing at Jack with a smarmy grin. Jack glares in response, half wanting to get out of his seat and - handcuffs and all - take a swing at Chase, but the other half of him, the rational half, knows that, given the searing pain in his side, is a very bad idea indeed. So instead, Jack sits there and takes stock of the situation and his options.

So, he asks himself. What are the facts?

1\. He's been shot. Unsure how bad it is, but he's still conscious and coherent, which is as good a sign as can be currently asked for.

2\. If Walter Mabry and Chase McKinney find out, they will probably finish the job right here and now, before the plan can get him out of there. It's cold math, and he can't be certain, of course, what they'll do, but it's easy enough to guess. An injured hostage who needs immediate medical attention is more trouble than he's worth, especially given Jack can guess their endgame already involves killing all of them. Not a chance he wants to take.

3\. If he reveals now that he's been hurt, this badly? The whole thing will fall apart. There's no way they can pull this off if the other Horsemen know he was shot.

Besides, how bad can it be? It was probably just a graze, probably barely scratched him. With that, Jack has made a decision. The trick comes first. The team comes first. He can get his little scratch taken care of after they expose Mabry and Tressler.

Right as Jack thinks the words 'little scratch', one of the goons grabs him and shoves him down out of the van, nearly causing him to fall as his line of vision whites out from the agony that suddenly surges throughout his entire body. He masks the falter as a stumble and bites the inside of his cheek as every step up towards the plane jolts a brand new wave of pain through him.

The comment about not getting blood on the seats almost makes Jack choke out a laugh. After the verification of the chip, Chase does exactly what he's supposed to do, a fact which Jack would be more gratified by if he'd not neglected to factor in the possibility of his body bearing a gunshot wound when Walter's goons yank him up out of the seat. That seat now shows a dark stain of blood, a fact which goes ignored and unnoticed in the commotion of the door being opened.

It's a thing Jack is grateful for, the fact that his screaming is missed for what it is, in light of the roar of the engines and the panicked voices of his fellow Horsemen. He doesn't particularly want them to know he was screaming in pain, being thrown around jolting his injured side to the point that he couldn't keep from crying out. He's not so caught up in the fire ripping at him from somewhere above his right hip that he doesn't hear what Merritt says while being literally kicked out of the plane though. Pondering that, however, is left for a later time, as Jack himself is thrown from the plane.

A fall from an airplane to a mat a dozen feet below is less fatal than a fall from an airplane to cement a thousand plus feet below, but it doesn't feel like it when Jack lands. It's enough to cause him to black out completely for a moment. He comes to fast enough to roll to the side, making room for the next person, and avoiding those already down noticing he was unconscious, even just for that long.

 _Get up_ , he orders himself, curled on the mat watching Merritt pull Lula up off the ground. _Get up, get up, get up._

It feels impossible, like Jack Wilder is gonna bleed to death right here on this mat, and there isn't anything he can do about it. It feels impossible, but he does it anyway. He gets up, slowly, and shrugs on the heavier coat he's handed, breathing through the pain and zipping the coat over the ever-growing patch of blood on his shirt.

All that gets him through the next ten minutes is a repeating loop, _ten more minutes and it's over, ten minutes and it's over, ten minutes and you can tell them, ten minutes and they've got it from here, ten minutes and just hope you don't bleed to death before that._

The clock strikes midnight, there are arms around him, and ten minutes are all he has in him. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, overtaking the noise and commotion of celebration around him. The group hug dissolves, he stumbles back, and he knows he's going to fall before it happens.

"Guys," Jack chokes out, swaying on his feet. It's too quiet to hear, the others flushed with victory and not really paying attention. "Dylan," he says, looking to their leader for help. "Dylan, I'm gonna-" His words cut off, and Jack sees sky.

It takes everyone a few moments to realize he's no longer standing, enough time for the people with cameras to notice Jack is now crumpled on the ground, broadcasting the image of the youngest Horseman staring at the fireworks going off above him, face pale from blood loss, eyes half closed and glassy, a dark stain spreading from under him. The cameras catch it as the others notice, as Lula exclaims loudly, the smiles vanish from Merritt and Dylan's faces, and Daniel drops to one knee.

Dylan doesn't see what happens next. It's his job to keep his former employers busy while the other four beat a hasty retreat off the barge, and he can't afford to waste precious minutes figuring out what happened to Jack.

His foot skids sideways a couple inches as he takes off running and it takes all the resolve in him to lock up the fact that he just slipped in Jack's blood in that little part of his mind for things he can't deal with right now, and make sure Natalie catches a glimpse of where he's going.

Natalie catches up to him. He knew she would. He can see the war playing out on her face when he holds up the flash drive and tells her what's on it, and Dylan can't help but add a plea onto his bargain, one he knows Cowan would scoff off in a second, but will hopefully appeal to the moral compass that he knows Natalie has, that he knows points true North.

"We both saw Jack Wilder go down," he says, holding onto her gaze. It'll be harder to ignore what he's saying while looking him in the eye. "I have no idea what happened to him, Natalie, but that was a lot of blood. A kid I'm responsible for could be dying right now. Please let me go to him. Please let me help Jack."

She takes the flash drive and Dylan can't help but feel, as he tells her 'welcome to the long game', that this is only the start of events yet to come.

When Dylan gets into the small, low set boat, the first thing he does as it motors away is look for Jack. He's on his back with his coat open, head propped on Merritt's thigh, and Lula pressing an already sodden wad of fabric to his side. His eyes are fluttering, and he doesn't appear to be aware of his surroundings. For his part, Daniel is just staring at Jack, eyes wide and fingers tapping frantic patterns against his pant legs.

"What the hell happened?" Dylan demands to no one in particular.

"He's shot, that's what! He's been shot, Dylan, they shot him. Jack got _shot._ With a _gun_ ," says Daniel with what could be perceived as disoriented anger but Dylan knows to be fear.

"When? How? _When_?"

"Guys he needs a doctor," Lula interrupts before Daniel or anyone else can attempt to answer. "He's lost a lot of blood, he needs a hospital."

"No!" The interjection is surprisingly forceful, given the man responsible for it can't sit up on his own and looks so out of it Dylan had thought he had no idea where he was. "No hospital."

"Jack," Merritt starts with a warning in his voice, before Jack cuts him off, looking up to meet his eyes.

"I didn't die on a bridge," he misses the winces from Daniel and Dylan at that, "and then go on the run for a year and then get shot, just so we could get arrested at a hospital," Jack says with as much strength as he can manage in his current state.

"No. It's too risky." This time it's Daniel, whose voice has lost the high pitched tone and jittery quality. His arms are now folded across his chest and his face is serious.

Serious and a little guilty, Dylan notes. They'll have to have a conversation about that, when the dust settles. Right now, though, they have more pressing things to deal with. Atlas has carried the world on his shoulders for a long time, he can live with the weight for a few more hours. Daniel will live but Jack may not, which makes this easily one of the hardest calls Dylan has ever made.

Everyone is looking at Dylan like he has the answers, like no matter what any of them think, the final say is going to come from him. Merritt, Daniel, and Lula are all staring at him expectantly, like the answer is obvious. Jack's face is a plea, knowing what he's asking makes no logical sense but asking it anyway. In the split second that is all the time he - and Jack - has left, Dylan makes a decision.

He pulls out a cellphone and dials a number from memory, not even waiting for the person on the other end to acknowledge him before jumping right into it.

"This is Dylan Rhodes," he says, looking away from the others and out across the Thames, at the flashes of color and light reflected in the glittering water. "I'm calling in for Albatross, and I need Cariss at the dock. Jack Wilder's been shot." He ends the call and looks back to them. "We have a safe house not far from here, a doctor is gonna meet us at the shore. If it even looks like you might need surgery," Dylan says, directly to Jack, "we are going immediately to the nearest hospital."

"Dylan." Daniel's voice is tight, a precursor to a fight Dylan doesn't want to have.

"Dr. Cariss is a trauma surgeon, she's worked with the Eye for ten years, she knows what she's doing and she's good at it." Dylan holds eye contact with Daniel strongly, not wavering from the doubt and fear he sees there. "Danny I swear to you, I wouldn't put Jack's life in this woman's hands if she wasn't the best. The safe house is equipped, this is what it's for."

A few seconds pass, then Daniel nods. "Okay."

A quick glance around to see if he's about to get any pushback from the others shows Dylan Lula steadfastly focused on holding what appears to be a t-shirt to Jack's side, Merritt having put a hand on the young man's forehead. Neither of them seem to be in an arguing frame of mind, and Dylan nods. Jack himself seems to still be conscious, by some miracle of stamina and luck, though every couple of seconds his eyes flutter alarmingly.

The boat ride continues in a tense, stiff silence broken only by the crashing of water against the hull and the dull roar of the boat's motor. The chaos is long left behind them, and Dylan is unnerved by how empty the space around them seems. Most of the New Year's Eve revelry is elsewhere, and the mood on the boat is not one of any kind of celebration, despite their fresh victory. Dylan closes his eyes and hopes to anyone that might be listening that Dr. Cariss will be there when the boat makes landing.

"Albatross?"

Dylan's eyes fly open upon hearing the one word question, looking down to see Lula, one of her eyebrows raised. It's a welcome excuse to think for a minute about something that isn't just how disturbingly red her hands have gotten.

"The safe house's code word. They've all got one, and they're all birds, I guess. So." Dylan shrugs, realizing now that she's pointed it out that it really does sound ridiculous. "This one's Albatross."

"And it's set up to deal with gunshot victims?" she presses, and out of the corner of his eye, Dylan sees Daniel flinch slightly.

"They're all prepared to deal with emergencies." Before continuing to speak, Dylan looks back out across the water to the approaching dock. "What we do, it's dangerous. Jack isn't the first Eye magician to be shot during a show, believe it or not."

"Any of them die?" Lula regrets asking the question as soon as it slips out of her mouth. The way Dylan stares down at his hands is all the answer she needs.

Dr. Milena Cariss is indeed by the side of the river when they dock, a young woman beside her. Her assistant, Dylan assumes. She wastes no time at all jumping down into the boat, Lula stepping back to give her space and access to Jack.

"How long ago did this happen?" Dr. Cariss asks, not looking up from what she's doing. Daniel answers the question, and it's obvious from the doctor's face that she doesn't like what she hears.

"Okay," she says quickly, standing up straight. "He's lost a lot of blood, and I won't know exactly what we're dealing with until I get a clear field. We need to move out now."

Jack is shifted quickly to the backboard lowered into the boat by Dr. Cariss's assistant, and Daniel and Dylan carefully work together to lift the backboard and its cargo up to the dock, and across the twenty feet to the illegally parked van waiting for them. Dr. Cariss and her assistant jump in after, the door sliding closed and the van screeching off, leaving the remaining four on the pavement, watching the headlights disappear into the night.

A second car arrives moments later to ferry Dylan, Daniel, Merritt, and Lula to the safe house. It's nearby to where the boat made land, but to Daniel, the drive feels like it drags on and on. Fingers once again tapping rapidly against his thighs, Daniel glances next to him and freezes at what he sees.

Lula's hands, sitting in her lap, are covered in drying, flaky redness. Blood. Her hands, held open, palms up and trembling, are coated in Jack's blood. Daniel looks sharply away, throat suddenly tight. He's abruptly reminded of standing in a room in New York, watching a car explode on the news and being struck by the nagging doubt - had there been a mistake? Was Jack on that bridge still, in that car? Had something gone horribly, fatally wrong?

Except this is worse somehow, because this time he knows for certain. Something _has_ gone horribly wrong. Fatally, now that is a possibility all too present in the minds of all four of them.

Once in the safe house living room, it's a long, stressful wait before a door opens and Dr. Cariss walks out. She looks tired, but meets Dylan's eyes easily, and he can see the relief in hers before she opens her mouth.

"That," she says, looking them over with an indecipherable expression, "was a _very_ close call. He's out of the woods, for now."

The release of tension in the room at the doctor's words is palpable.

"Thank you so much, doctor," Dylan says, wiping a hand down his face like he can erase the anxiety and fear of the wait with a pass of his palm.

"Don't thank me yet," Dr. Cariss cautions, folding her arms. "I said he's stable for now. If he gets an infection, or I somehow missed something, things could go downhill very quickly. Now I don't anticipate that happening, but Mr. Wilder was very seriously injured, and all possibilities have to be taken seriously. I have to head back into the A&E now, but I want you to call me if he spikes a fever or if the bleeding gets serious again."

"When will he wake up?" Daniel asks, arms folded tight across his chest.

"Could be minutes, could be hours," Cariss says, shrugging. "Everyone reacts differently. Don't be alarmed if he's out of it when he wakes up, if he's confused or disoriented. The pain meds he's on are pretty heavy duty and they can knock you off kilter."

Hearing that makes Daniel nervous, but he nods, thanking her.

As she's about to leave, Dr. Cariss stops, looking over her shoulder to where they all stand staring apprehensively at the closed door.

"You can go in, you know," she says with the faintest hint of humor, then exits with her assistant in tow.

Just as Daniel's hand is hovering over the doorknob, his phone rings, causing him to jump and jerk away his hand like he'd been burnt. He pulls the phone out and, seeing the caller ID, frowns in confusion, answering it immediately.

"Henley?" Daniel says, and instantly, Dylan, Merritt, and Lula's faces are as bewildered as Daniel feels.

"Is he dead?" Henley wastes no time, cutting right to the point. Her voice across the phone is equal parts sharp and shaky.

It takes a moment for Daniel to be certain his voice won't break when he answers her.

"He's alive," he says, and his voice breaks anyway.

"Oh thank god." Her breathing is audible through the speaker, trembling whooshes of air. Daniel can hear Henley's fear in the way she breathes, and he speaks again on compulsion.

"He got shot." Despite the number of times he's said it, Daniel still can't believe it actually happened. "He's out right now. The doctor says he'll be okay, though." Daniel leaves out what Dr. Cariss had said about uncertainty, her cautioning about infection and bleeding.

"I saw him fall," Henley says in hardly more than a whisper. "I watched it happen, he was standing and then on the ground, and the cameras showed the pool left when you got him up, the blood, and I-"

There isn't a position in the world Daniel thinks he would want to be in less right now than Henley's. The only thing he can think of that could have made recent events worse is if he'd witnessed them from far away on a reporter's camera image, having no answers about what happened, or if Jack was even alive.

"He's alive and he's going to be _fine_ ," Daniel says with all the certainty and conviction he can muster up. It's more than he feels, but Henley doesn't have to know that.

Henley seems reluctant to hang up the phone, lingering on the other end while saying nothing more until the request, hesitant like she isn't sure if he'll agree.

"Will you call me? When he wakes up?"

No matter what has happened in the past, her reasons for leaving, how he feels about it, he knows it must be hell for her to not be with them right now, to be so far away while someone still very dear to her is so badly hurt.

"Of course I will," he says, not willing to make it even harder on her. It's too easy to imagine himself in her shoes for that, aside from simply still caring too much to do that to her. "I promise."

The hesitation lingers still, Henley and Daniel on either side of a phone call neither wants to end but can't figure out how to continue.

"Okay," she says after a while, taking an audible breath to steel herself. "Okay. Bye, Danny."

The other seem to have been waiting for Daniel to be done on the phone before going in. Safety in numbers, even from a threat as intangible as not wanting to go into that room and confront the reality of what's happened.

"Was Henley," Daniel mutters unnecessarily, twiddling his phone in the air before dropping it into his pocket.

The door seems to have grown ominous, larger than life in front of them, almost threatening. In a fit of sudden annoyance that a slab of what looks like cheaply crafted wood has managed to intimidate four capable grown adults, Daniel walks over and opens it, stepping into the room and feeling all the breath leave his lungs in a whoosh of air.

Jack looks awful. His face is pale, the only patch of color a reddening bruise on his cheek from one of the times his head hit something hard in the last couple hours, and his eyes are closed. It's hard to immediately see what's wrong with him, as a fresh t-shirt covers the bandaging over his side, but the bag of blood replenishing his veins of what he'd lost is something of a hint. He's breathing on his own, chest visibly rising and falling, which is a small comfort to Daniel, who most of all wasn't expecting Jack to look so small. Jack is lively and energetic, seeming to be moving constantly, and seeing him so quiet and eerily still is scary beyond what Daniel will admit.

There's a pair of armchairs at the end of the room, several feet from the baseboard of the bed Jack is laying on. Daniel claims one of them, sitting down and running his palms over his jacket and pant legs, smoothing out creases, even after any wrinkle that may have been there is gone. Lula drops into the chair next to his, then almost immediately stands back up, having noticed the state of her hands.

She leaves abruptly and walks back in with a washcloth, sitting back down and swinging her legs to drape over the arm of the chair. She works at all the blood on her hands with focused intent, scrubbing at the creases in her palms.

Merritt, out of some combination of a lack of other chairs and an irritating urge to hover, has gingerly sat down on the bed itself, next to Jack's left shoulder. One hand sits unobtrusively in his lap, the other braced on the mattress on the right side of Jack's head, giving the impression of trying to shield his younger friend from something. What is anyone's guess, and the look on his face dares anyone to comment on it.

Seeing Chase again, it's shaken Merritt in ways he hadn't expected, leaving every part of his life feeling vulnerable and exposed. For a long time, Merritt had tried very hard not to get too attached to anyone, never sticking around in anyone's life long enough for them to get too irreplaceable, and mostly he had succeeded. Until he got an anonymous tarot card with an address on the back, and things weren't quite so simple anymore. People, attachments, they have their perks.

But, Merritt thinks, looking down and beside him, at the bruise on Jack's face, they have their price too.

For his part, Dylan stands back. He leans against the doorframe and looks at Jack with a dull expression and heaviness in his chest. This is on him, what's happened here. He should've been on top of things, none of this should have happened at all.

Dylan's morose thought process is interrupted by Lula, who squeezes past him back out of the room with a muttered, "'Scuse me." When she returns not even a minute later, she's dragging a chair behind her. Dropping the chair back onto all four legs, Lula waves a hand at Dylan, then at it.

"Watching you stand there like some kinda broody door guard was making my head hurt," she explains, flopping back into her own chair.

"Hey," Daniel murmurs to Lula, getting her attention. When she looks at him, Daniel holds out his jacket.

While cleaning Jack's blood from her hands, Lula had taken off her jacket and over shirt, both with stained sleeves, leaving her in a t-shirt. She stares at the offered piece of clothing, looking from it to Daniel himself with an evaluating gaze. Having made some internal judgement or decision, Lula takes the jacket and shrugs it on. It's too big for her, clearly, but she flips up the collar and pulls the lapels tight around her like it's the most comfortable thing she's ever worn.

As the silence in the room mounts to an oppressive weight on his shoulders, Dylan looks down at his watch.

 _One. Two. Three. Four._


	2. Chapter 2

and here we get into more of the emotional fallout of everything, plus some unresolved thoughts and feelings i had about the scene where danny talks over everyone and agrees to steal the chip.

thanks for reading, and as always, lemme know what you think!

* * *

It takes an hour for Jack to wake up. Accurately, it takes fifty-seven minutes, according to Dylan's watch. He stirs slowly, a small groan escaping slightly parted lips.

"Jack," Merritt says quietly, moving his hand to Jack's shoulder, tapping gently to draw his attention. "Jack, you with us?"

Jack looks up at him with half-open, hazily-focused eyes. He tries to talk, but all that comes out is a hoarse squeak of air that Merritt would've mocked him for mercilessly under different circumstances. He closes his eyes and swallows against his dry throat.

"What happened?" Jack manages to ask in a raspy voice. He tries to push himself up onto one elbow but collapses immediately with a hoarse cry.

"You got shot, genius," Merritt says, eyeing Jack critically. "Don't move, there's a hole in your torso."

Squinting up at him, Jack tries to move his arm experimentally, stopping after a second when Merritt presses down on his shoulder, restraining gently.

"Knock it off or you're gonna rip another one, okay?"

"Ow," groans Jack in response. His eyelids flutter for a moment, then snap fully open, panic in them. "Dylan," he says, fingers of the hand on his uninjured side clutching Merritt's arm. "We've gotta get Dylan, they're gonna throw him in the river." His head turns, eyes flicking wildly around the room, not really taking anything in. "Where's Danny? And Lula? Are they okay? Merritt, Dylan's gonna die, where are they?"

"I'm fine, Jack," Dylan says, stepping over to the side of the bed, close enough that Jack, in his drugged stupor, can tell it's him. Daniel and Lula get up too, walking over to the opposite side.

"Everybody's okay," reassures Daniel, hesitating for a second before touching Jack's other shoulder. "We got him out, it's okay, we're all safe."

"It's all over," Lula adds, unconsciously rubbing her left palm with her right thumb, phantom blood still tacky against her skin. "We did it. It's over, we won."

Jack's death grip on Merritt loosens a fraction, some of the tension bleeding out of him. Dylan reaches out and squeezes his upper arm, a non-verbal reassurance.

A few moments pass during which Jack's focus jumps from Dylan, to Daniel, to Lula, and back again. He frowns, face creasing in worry.

"Where's Henley?"

Merritt looks away, Dylan inhales sharply, Lula's chin dips down, and Daniel's hand flies to his jacket pocket. Or, where his jacket pocket would be if he'd been wearing his jacket still. Noticing what he's doing, Lula reaches into the pocket of the borrowed jacket and hands Daniel his cell phone.

"He's calling her," Merritt tells Jack, who still seems distressed by Henley's absence, like he doesn't remember where or why she's gone. "Henley'll be on the phone in a minute. She called while you were still in dreamland, she's real worried about you."

Jack's face crumples in confusion. "Why?" he asks, and Merritt snorts.

"You got shot, Jackie."

"Oh." He's still frowning, not entirely appearing to believe that. "Okay."

"Hey, he's up," Daniel says into the phone, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

"Is that Henley?"

"Yeah, here, she wants to talk to you."

Taking the phone from Daniel, Merritt holds it up to Jack's ear so he can speak into it without having to move.

"Hi, I'm totally fine," Jack says, and Henley's relieved laugh is audible through the speaker.

Lula claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a string of hysterical giggles trying to escape at the opportunity of finally having something to break the oppressive weight of the fear and worry saturating the air all around her.

Jack and Henley talk briefly, until Jack begins to slur his words and have trouble keeping his eyes open. Merritt pulls the phone up to his own ear to say hi to Henley before passing the device to Dylan. When he gets the phone back, Daniel leans over to drop it into the pocket of the jacket Lula still wears. He doesn't ask for the coat back, and Lula is a little selfishly glad for it.

Looking at Jack, now passed out again, head rolled against the side of Merritt's thigh, Daniel shuffles towards the door, rubbing his knuckles absently as he goes. At a look from Dylan, he stops, hand halfway to the doorknob.

"I'm gonna go make coffee," Daniel says, instead of saying _'I have to get out of here, I can't sit in this room and wait anymore, I can't sit and wait for something to go wrong, if I have to look at him like that any longer I'm going to have a panic attack because this sucks and I can't_ do _anything about it so I have to_ go _._ ' Dylan nods and Daniel leaves.

Looking around the room, taking in Merritt staring at some vague spot on the wall, and Lula, who's pulled a deck of cards out of somewhere (probably Daniel's jacket), and is now shuffling it on her legs. Making a decision, thinking about Daniel out in the other part of the house, about the weight of the world and the look on his face when he left, Dylan stands up.

"I have to make some phone calls," he says, leaving Lula and Merritt to watch over Jack, sure that if there's a problem, one of them will come get him.

Dylan finds Daniel in the kitchen, a dim room lit only by a lamp on in the living room. He knows Daniel knows he's there by the way Daniel's shoulder angles when he walks in, hands pausing for a moment over the tin of coffee grounds. Dylan sits down at the small table in the center of the kitchen, balanced on three unsteady legs, and watches the process play out in front of him.

Making coffee is like performing a card trick, at least as far as Daniel's performance and enjoyment of such things goes. His hands are practiced and sure, going through a procedure he's gone through probably thousands of times. There are careful measurements, precise movements, and a specific order in which things must be done. It's controlled and familiar, and as the grounds are measured out and poured into a filter, Dylan can actually see Daniel's hands stop shaking. A few minutes later, the thick, earthy aroma of coffee fills the kitchen.

Daniel pulls a mug out of the cupboard, offering it to Dylan, who shakes his head. With a shrug, Daniel pours coffee into the cup and sits down, staring at the liquid and avoiding looking Dylan in the eyes.

"How are you holding up, Danny?" Dylan keeps the question quiet and calm, as non confrontational as possible while not making Daniel feel like he's being handled with kid gloves.

"Fine." The answer is clipped and short. "I'm not the one who had a bullet put through me."

Dylan has no response for that, just watches Daniel drum his fingertips on the table and repeatedly pick up and set down his coffee without drinking any of it. He's waiting for Daniel to take the lead in this conversation, take it where he needs it to go. With a spear of regret in his gut, Dylan thinks that of all of them, even Jack who presently lies in the other room shot, it's Daniel he's let down the most.

Even with all his bravado and headstrong arrogance, it's easy for Dylan to detect the ways in which Daniel needs them, needs him in particular. Merritt has done things where he can to try and take care of him, Daniel too preoccupied with the image of Jack as the sometimes-naive kid brother to take seriously any help he might offer, but though Merritt will be the first to acknowledge the years he has on the others, Daniel has still cast himself in a role of responsibility where the rest of the Horsemen are concerned.

Their dynamic, Dylan's and Daniel's, is a complicated one, but as the only person Daniel doesn't feel he needs to play the role of guiding hand and bulletproof vest to, Dylan is in a unique position to make sure he's taken care of too. In their recent conflict, the mistrust and frustration, the butting of heads, Dylan is now worried he's let Daniel slip to the wayside, something he hopes he can still fix.

"I don't know how this happened," Daniel says, and Dylan thinks _you and me both_ , until Daniel speaks again and Dylan's chest tightens. "I don't know how I _let_ this happen."

"You didn't."

"If I hadn't agreed to steal that chip in the first place…"

"Why did you?" It's something Dylan's been wondering, since he got the whole story out of them while setting up for the London show. Merritt, Jack, and Lula had looked a range from uncomfortable to angry when it came out how Daniel had overridden them and agreed to Walter Mabry's terms for stealing the chip. Daniel himself however, had made a face, just for a fraction of a moment, a flicker of an expression between a cringe and something else sharp and almost fearful.

"He was going to do it," Daniel answers quietly. "We didn't plan for Jack getting shot because we didn't think they would come at us with guns in the alley, but we should have, because it already happened before, when Merritt, Jack, and Lula said they wouldn't do it. One of Mabry's guys got as far as cocking his gun before…" His fingers still on the table. "Two seconds to get the gun up, two to fire the shots if he had a quick trigger finger. He could have killed all three of them in four seconds, five to shoot me too. Five seconds and we would have all been dead, and I knew he would have done it. It was right there in his face, Dylan, he- he would have done it."

"It was the only way to get out of there alive."

Daniel nods. "And then they shot Jack anyway, so."

"And he lived. They shot Jack but he lived, and the three of you weren't harmed at all. You did good, Danny, and you can't be blaming yourself for this." Dylan ducks his head down to catch Daniel's eyes. "This was not your fault."

"It wasn't yours either." When he sees Dylan about to speak, Daniel raises a hand, cutting him off. "No, nope, listen to me. I've seen the way you're looking at him, or not looking at him, I know you, Dylan, I know what that look means. If it wasn't my fault then you're not allowed to make it yours either."

A small smile quirks up the corner of Dylan's mouth.

"How about you and me agree it wasn't anybody's fault but Walter Mabry, Arthur Tressler, and whoever actually pulled the trigger," he says, and is rewarded with a nod from Daniel.

"Yeah. Yeah, I can live with that."

It feels like forever since Dylan and Daniel left the room when Merritt hears Jack's voice again. He sounds clearer than he did before he passed out but Merritt wonders if he really is, given he has no idea what Jack is talking about.

"Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?" Merritt asks, shifting back so he can get a better look at him.

Instead of answering right away, Jack tries again to sit up, looking too determined this time to be mollified. Rolling his eyes and muttering something about kids these days under his breath, Merritt gives up on trying to get him to stay lying down and instead helps him get at least partially upright, putting a pillow behind his back to ease some of the pressure.

"Did I mean what, Jack?" Merritt asks again, moments later regretting bringing whatever it is back up. Jack looks bad, though he's speaking pretty clearly. His face, despite the IV in his arm, hasn't regained anything that could be called a healthy color, and when Merritt asks him about what he said, Jack frowns, shifting and glancing around the room.

"In the plane, they were gonna throw us out, we were all yelling, it was really loud…" Jack is rambling a little, speeding up and slowing down sporadically, not sounding at all like himself, and Merritt internally retracts his earlier observation about his speech, beginning to get concerned. His concern is only amplified when Jack actually gets to the point of where he's going with this. "I heard what you said. Did you mean it? About us being your- Did you mean it?"

In an unforeseen turn of events, Merritt finds himself struck dumb by the question, staring at Jack in silence. That was the last thing he'd been expecting, and now that it's here, in that reedy, uncertain voice, he has no idea what to do with it.

Truthfully, Merritt had been hamming it up on the plane, but there had been something else to it as well, more to the shouted words than exaggerated acting. Maybe it was what Lula said in the warehouse when they met her, still stuck in his mind like a burr. Maybe it was his twin brother, getting ready to throw him out of a plane, the fact that Chase was ready to murder him and do it with a grin, coupled with the memory of the bar, " _you will beg for Merritt's forgiveness and realize you will never be half the man that he is_ ". Maybe it was about telling them the truth, in the only way Merritt knew how, a truth cloaked in a joke and a con.

During the stretch of contemplation and soul searching, Jack has taken the opportunity to completely misinterpret Merritt's silence as a 'no'.

"Cause it's not fair to joke about that anymore, it's been too long, we've been through too much." He's getting agitated now, cheeks flushed and hands clenched in the blanket covering him. "I've never had a- Nobody ever- You guys are-" Jack shakes his head, breath more labored than Merritt thinks it should be. "You can't say that and not mean it, it feels too real."

"It is real," Merritt says, calculating his discomfort and clumsiness with sentiment against Jack's current physical and emotional state, against the odds that - once the meds wear off and he's back to himself - the kid will remember this at all, and coming to a decision. "It is real, and I meant what I said." Noticing his focus is wavering away and wanting to make sure he hears and understands this, Merritt puts a hand to the side of his face, turning Jack's head to make eye contact with him. "I meant it, okay?"

Jack nods and so does Merritt, withdrawing his hand and feeling satisfied with himself for having handled a complicated, emotionally fraught situation like a pro.

It seems like Jack is drifting again, not really paying attention to what's going on, and in the lull, Merritt hears the sound of cards shuffling begin again. He hadn't noticed it stop, and it reminds him that not only is Lula still sitting there, but she was there through the entire thing. Merritt winces and turns to look at her, giving her a hard stare.

"You," he says, "didn't hear any of that, and if you tell anyone, I will know."

"Tell anyone what?" asks Lula innocently, cards shuffling neatly into a pile on her thigh. "You didn't say anything and he was out the whole time."

He grins at her and taps the side of his nose. _Atta girl._

Long moments continue to tick past in quiet, though as time wears on, Jack seems to get worse. His breathing doesn't ease and his cheeks have taken on an alarming flush. Merritt watches as he starts to move, hands twitching around the blanket fabric, frown on his face deepening. After a while, Jack starts muttering, words jumbled and inaudible. Half-lidded eyes snap abruptly open, and Jack looks around, the sharp fear in his eyes almost painful to look at.

"Danny and Dylan," he says urgently, seeming to have noticed their absence. Merritt curses his luck that while Jack is disoriented and confused enough to keep forgetting where everyone is and what's happened, he seems to be able to take stock of the room's occupants and tally up who's missing just fine. "Where are they, we gotta go-"

Merritt is saved from having to deal with that particular situation by the conveniently timed reappearance of Daniel and Dylan. Daniel takes one look at Jack and sets his coffee down on an end table, hurrying over.

"Help me get him down, he's gonna hurt himself."

Together, Daniel and Merritt manage to shift Jack down into a position where he's less liable to tear his stitches in his agitation. Daniel is bent low next to the bed, trying to figure out what Jack thinks is happening, and convince him that everyone is okay and they can stay right here. After a short time of this strategy, Daniel looks up, panic in his eyes when they find Dylan's.

"Dylan, get over here," he says, sounding like he had on the boat.

"Danny I think my heart's gonna explode," Jack gasps, breath jerking in and out of him in stuttering, frightened gulps. He can feel his heart beating in his chest, fast and hard like he's just run a marathon. The rapid thumps echo in Jack's ears as he tries to make Daniel understand what's going on.

"You're gonna be fine, it's all gonna be fine," Daniel insists, then looks over and snaps urgently, " _Dylan_! I think something's _wrong_."

There's an unspoken 'holy shit, you _think_?' in the incredulous look Lula shoots Daniel, who steps back to allow Dylan past. She can see the words Daniel is mouthing to himself and feels guilty, watching his lips form the soundless syllables, ' _I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do_ '.

Dylan doesn't seem to have that problem. He immediately lays his palm against Jack's forehead, pulling it back quickly and taking out his phone.

"He's spiked a fever," he says to the room in general. "I'm calling Dr. Cariss."

While Dylan stands by the bed and waits for Dr. Cariss to answer the phone, Daniel seems to land on a course of action. He turns to face Merritt, his expression sharp and accusatory.

"Why would you let him sit up?" Daniel demands, and Lula has a hunch he's grasping at straws to deflect from the awful helplessness of the situation. Judging by the raised eyebrow and how he crosses his arms and shifts to face Daniel, Merritt is in a similar position and willing to rise to the bait.

"'Let him', Danny? Are you kidding me?" Merritt scoffs, shaking his head. "Tell you what, why don't you tell him he's gotta stay put when he wakes up and wants to jump around right away."

If he'd been about to say anything else, Merritt is cut off by Dylan, talking to Cariss on the phone. It's a tense wait for Lula to scramble around following Dylan's instructions to dig a thermometer out of the kit left behind by the doctor, Dylan repeating the number displayed back to Cariss.

"Okay, the good news is you don't need to call an ambulance."

Dylan's shoulders sag in relief upon hearing the news, pinching the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding the phone.

"What should we do? About the fever? This means there's an infection, doesn't it?" Despite his gladness to hear they aren't in an emergent situation just yet, Dylan is still worried. "He said it felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest or explode or something."

"It might've been a panic attack, understandable given the circumstances, and it's not necessarily an infection, sometimes these things just happen. How does he seem now?"

"Better. We got him calmed down some, he seems like he's breathing easier. But we thought he was doing better before, too, and look what happened." Dylan keeps his eyes on Jack the whole time. He watches Daniel and Lula talk to him quietly while Merritt stands back with crossed arms and a frown.

"Sounds to me, then," comes Cariss's voice, calm and steady to a degree Dylan finds almost infuriating, "like you should monitor the fever and call me if it gets more than two degrees higher or lasts more than twelve hours, alright?" As if she can hear Dylan's dissatisfaction with her reply through the phone, she sighs. "It's probably nothing, things like this happen all the time, a patient gets a little fever and is right as rain in a couple hours, no need to sound the alarm. Could be a lot of things, could be a lot of nothing, and we're swamped out here. Just keep him as calm as possible and watch for the things I mentioned, okay?"

Several moments pass, then Dylan nods. Remembering she can't see him through the phone, he cringes and says out loud, "Yeah, alright. If you're sure that's safe."

With that, Dylan is once again left alone in a situation he feels totally out of his depth trying to handle. The others are there too, of course, but they all look as lost as Dylan feels.

Night drags on into day and they sleep in shifts, restless and never quite feeling like they've slept at all. There are other rooms with beds in them in the house, but they feel uncomfortable and cold to Daniel, who takes his turn to sleep reluctantly. There's something about being out of the room away from Jack that feels like tempting fate, like every time looking at him will be the last.

The worst part though, for Daniel, is hearing the things Jack is saying, the fever and medication coursing through him loosening his tongue and dismantling his reservations.

He asks them to stay, once, twice, three times before sleep retakes him. The third time he looks at Daniel, "Nobody ever stays, I've never had anyone who stayed."

Even that is preferable to the apologies, the 'I'll do better's.

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when his eyes close and his breaths ease. Daniel shakes his head and looks at Dylan.

"I hate this," he says, quiet but fierce. "This isn't him, he would hate knowing we heard this."

 _He would hate that we heard it but it is him,_ Dylan thinks. _It's always been him, we've all noticed it, that almost desperate way he tries so damn hard to make people proud, make his presence worthwhile._ He doesn't say any of that to Daniel, just nods and pats his shoulder, hoping this will be over soon and, for everyone's sake, Jack won't remember what he said when the painkillers wear off.

Sometime that afternoon, after his voice has stilled and he's passed out again, Jack's fever breaks. Lula takes the opportunity to leave and get takeout, rationalizing that it's because nobody's eaten in forever and Jack'll be hungry when he wakes up, and it's got nothing to do with feeling like an interloper still, in the middle of something she doesn't feel right being in the middle of. The drive gives Lula the time to clear her own head, to breathe through her fear at nearly losing one of the people she's finally, for the first time in a long time, started to feel like she could get close to.

Jack is awake when she gets back, sitting up again just like Merritt predicted. He looks leagues better than he has since the plane, still pale and a little unsteady but fever nearly gone and no longer babbling internalized insecurities other people had no place hearing. He smiles when Lula walks in. She smiles back, and it feels like some of the terrible weight in the air has lifted.

Resilient as always, Jack recovers quickly, up and walking around sooner than Dylan is entirely comfortable with. He walks slowly, stiffly into the kitchen, sitting down at the table across from Dylan.

"What's next?" Jack asks.

"What do you mean?" Dylan keeps his voice neural, a little unnerved by the serious look on Jack's face.

"I mean what do we do now? Are you planning to- Where do we go from here?"

Dylan can read between the lines of what Jack is asking and answers truthfully. "I don't know, but whatever it is, we'll do it together. Nobody's going anywhere, not any time soon anyway. Alright?"

There's an almost-smile in Jack's eyes when he replies, a weight of faith in his voice Dylan doesn't take lightly. "Okay."


End file.
